For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams. In my little room at home, I felt that I was somewhere else. In Paris, for instance.

Fashion is instinctive and sensual. Learn to love what you wear. It should feel like eating chocolates...wi thout the calories

I think that if you want to pass emotion, you have to write a letter. Emotions do not pass in SMS or in e-mail.

Fashion is not always about what's new, it's also about what's good. And I think if you need to see what's good, you have to be there.

There is nothing scarier than being ‘the designer of the moment,’ because the moment ends.

I am not interested in perfection, and neither are the women who wear my clothes.

Yves Saint Laurent gave women power, Chanel liberated them and when I joined Lanvin, I thought 'what do I bring to women? One day, I received an SMS from a friend in New York - she was in a taxi on the way to court to face her arsehole ex-husband, and she said to me 'Alber, I am wearing a Lanvin dress, and I feel so protected.' That to me was the biggest compliment I ever received. To have a 500 gram piece of silk make her feel protected - that made me very happy indeed.